A wilder ride than any roller coaster

Excursions in abu dhabi by Teresa Machan

A wilder ride than any roller coaster

Dune driving offers real off-road adventure

HAVE you ever left your stomach on the roof of a Toyota Land Cruiser?

No, neither had I, until I tried dune driving – the desert’s answer to the Pepsi Max Big One roller coaster in Blackpool.

One minute you’re driving sanely along an arrow-straight desert highway and the next you’re veering off-road and across the desert flats past camel farms and the odd Bedouin, then before you know it you’re mounting a dune. But not before reducing the tyre pressure. Deflated tyres are key to getting a safe purchase on the sand, and this goes hand in hand with being encased in a robust four-wheel drive.

We were four strangers on an excursion from Abu Dhabi: a Brit, a Czech, a German and our Pakistani driver Zahoor. Throw in our Toyota Land Cruiser and it made for a spicy desert cocktail.

Ten minutes into our excursion we reached a camel-breeding farm. Wealthy Arabs employ Bedouin to rear camels for milk, meat and racing, and here, a near the car stood a Bedouin with a camel cow and her calf. Zahoor informed us the tribesman lived alone at the farm without electricity and with only camels for company – a true desert nomad.

Surfing the dunes

Departing in a cloud of sand we drove through desert scrub and into the dunes proper. The first dune ‘roll’ took us all by surprise and I realised dune driving is a tame description, given its capacity for inducing child-like screams from grown men.

After rolling a few mini-dunes to acclimatise us, Zahoor headed for a 60-metre-high death-defying sand wall. Imagine doing a U-turn up the sandy equivalent of a black-diamond ski slope and you get the picture. We pushed on, surfing ridges that tunnelled us inside waves of sand and scaling seemingly impossible slopes before launching off razor-sharp ridges and into the sandy yonder.

While surfing one particular dune at a 35 degree angle, I asked Zahoor what stopped us toppling sideways. “The force of speed,” he shouted. “If you get scared and apply the brake too soon you end up rolling over.”

Now a considerably shaken desert cocktail, we arrived at our camp in time to watch a sea of beige dunes turn pastel pink under a desert sunset. Hard to imagine that little more than half a century ago, the United Arab Emirates consisted of little else than empty sandscape.

While we made poor attempts at sand-boarding, a Bedouin with a mobile phone rustled up lamb kebabs, houmous, warm pitta and a mountain of salad. The mobile, we were told, was for communicating with his family in Sudan – and not for checking oil shares.

Later, relaxing under the stars and smoking an apple-scented hookah pipe, our German companion put the fear of God into us all. “Next time I’ll bring Schumacher,” he said.

&#42 Sunshine Tours half-day Desert Safari costs £49. Dune driving lessons are available and an hour driving a sand buggy costs about £38.

Sand surfer: racing down dunes in a 4WD makes for an exciting day out